Thank you Gary, and good morning everyone.

What an interesting twist this fall given the weather that we've had. A little more rain seems to be just enough to keep everything damp and until we have some frost I don't think we're going to have much luck with harvest.

This fall has created some interesting situations. Last week we talked about the problems of planting wheat late because of late harvest. At what point do you just not plant wheat? Each producer has to make up their own mind on that, taking into account what are the other options available to them. What I want to talk more about this morning is livestock forage from regrowth of corn or milo, sprouted volunteer corn or milo fields that made heads too late to get a grain crop matured. We have a lot of potential forage in many of these fields and given the fact that most pastures have no forage left on them, I think we need to consider using alternative forages. After some of the disasters last year from prussic acid and nitrate it is prudent to proceed with caution. Prussic acid will be a potential problem in sorghum but not in corn.

Nitrates can be a problem in either one. So far, the drought stressed milo that we've seen tested has come back remarkably low in nitrates. So if you have growing corn or milo shoots that have a goodly amount of growth, I don't think you 're going to have much problem with nitrates.

Probably the best way to utilize a lot of this forage, especially the corn, is to fence and graze. It keeps costs at a minimum. With any sorghum based forage we need to proceed with caution with the prussic acid. Prussic acid will be highest in small plants and early regrowth. It is a very volatile compound and within 72 hours of harvest or a hard freeze, it is usually gone. I would be inclined to not graze sorghum fields until several days after we've had that hard freeze. We have a lot of milo fields that didn't start shooting heads until after September 1st. If these make mature grain, it will be because we've had the latest frost on record. In addition to grazing, you may want to consider ensiling these crops or baling them. Keep in mind, that it may be a challenge to get the swathed crop dry enough to bale, so while an option, grazing may be better .

So get the cattleoff the pastures, and make use of some of these seldom available forages.

This is Chuck Otte, Geary County Extension Agent, with Ag Outlook 2003.

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